Following poets' footsteps to find Heaven Terrace Mount

By Zhu Moqing | 2009-11-7 | NEWSPAPER EDITION

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A landmark veranda bridge is built on the dam which helps form the Eight Immortals Lake at Mt Tiantai.

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Almost Heaven Legendary poet Li Bai extolled the peaks, magical valleys, swirling mists and waterfalls in Mt Tiantai, or Heaven Terrace Mountain. Zhu Moqing follows in his footsteps in Zhejiang Province and declares it's almost Heaven.

Legendary Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) traveler and geographer Xu Xiake (1587-1641) in his famous "Travel Diary" detailed two trips to a mountain retreat in eastern Zhejiang Province with well-preserved Buddhist heritage and spectacular scenery.

Its awe-inspiring peaks and cliffs, mysterious valleys and magical waterfalls had inspired even earlier luminaries such as the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) poet Li Bai (AD 701-762).

In one of the earliest writings about the mountain, by the Jin Dynasty (AD 265-420) author Sun Chuo (AD 314-371), it had already been crowned "the most sacred and graceful of all mountains."

This is Mt Tiantai, or Heaven Terrace Mountain, Zhejiang's unmatched monument in the history of Chinese art, literature and religion. Filled with skepticism whether the revered mountain has maintained its magic through the centuries, I decided to follow the writings and footsteps of the ancients.

At the northern tip of Taizhou City, Mt Tiantai forms the culmination of the Tiantai range, which runs northeastwards and extends into the East China Sea as the Zhoushan Archipelago.

A six-hour coach trip from Shanghai took me to Tiantai County at the foot of the mountain. Viewed from Google Earth, the town was curiously built into a boomerang-shaped basin bordered by well-defined cliffs almost straightly lined up. As the coach left the last tunnel on its way, the towering cliffs of Mt Tiantai, which form the northeastern margin of the boomerang, loomed on the horizon like a formidable wall, with bare rocks high up glistening in the early autumn haze.

The easiest destination to visit upon arriving in the town is Guoqing Temple, secluded in some nearby foothills. The renowned Buddhist sanctuary, first built in AD 598 during the Sui Dynasty (AD 581-618), played a vital role in the development of East Asia Buddhism.

Shortly before its establishment, Master Zhiyi (AD 538-597) founded here China's first indigenous and systematic Buddhist teachings, the Tiantai sect, named after the mountain. During the Tang Dynasty, the temple attracted attendance by monks from all over the country and even from Japan. Japanese monk Saicho aka Dengyo-Daishi (AD 767-822) created the Japanese descendant of the school, Tendaishu, after he had returned to Japan from months of study in Mt Tiantai.

Guoqing Temple underwent several renovations in the following century and the temple that stands today was rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) during the reign of the Emperor Yongzheng (1722-1735).

However, a tall all-brick Guoqing Pagoda, built with the oldest temple in the Sui Dynasty, has remained largely unscathed, making it one of the oldest surviving brick pagodas in China.

Shrouded in puffs of incense smoke and the mellow chanting of monks, the temple unveiled its natural charm as daylight dimmed. A pleasant walk at this time of the day also proved to be informative, since the absence of tourists made it possible to study more carefully the historic relics that abounded on the way.

Guoqing Temple served as one of the many lodges for traveler ancient Xu during his exploration of the mountain 400 years ago. But I opted to spend my nights in Longhuangtang Village, "a junction of major mountain trails," as described by Xu, high up on Mt Tiantai at an altitude of around 800 meters.

The largely primitive village was in dramatic contrast with a nearby hotel built to four-star standard. Opened in July this year, the Shiliang Hotel offers accommodation of great value and delicious local dishes such as stewed pork with tender bamboo shoots, braised mountain stream fish and organic vegetables grown by local farmers.